Voice mail services provided by a telephone company are becoming an alternative to traditional answering machines. Such voicemail systems enable someone to leave a when the user is on the telephone, online, or away from home. Voice mail messages can be retrieved from any touch-tone telephone. Such voicemail systems are advantageous because of such features as extension mailboxes that give individuals in shared households their own private mailbox, the chance to leave messages for other voicemail system users without ringing their phone, and pager notification that alerts the users of new messages. Generally, the voicemail system is protected by a password. When the user dials into the voicemail system, he or she is prompted for a password, and if the password is correct, is transferred to a menu.
However, the data in the user's voicemail box is controlled by the telephone company. Generally, telephone companies have a deletion policy that deletes old voicemail messages after fifteen or thirty days. This is a considerable space saving for the telephone company. However, in some instances, a user may wish to save a voicemail message for a longer period of time. This is not possible with today's voicemail systems.